Exclusive: The official involved in the Foreign Affairs exchanges has authored
misleading defenses of Kissinger in the past.
William Rogers in 1987 denied existence of cables showing Kissinger undercut
his ambassador to Argentina on human rights, but the cables are now published
in The Condor Years.

Excerpt from Chapter 12.

Chapter 12: Kissinger and Argentina’s “Terrorist
Problem” (Excerpt)
….
It would be naïve to suggest that it was entirely within the
power of the U.S. government to prevent the military governments of
the Condor countries from killing and torturing their own citizens
in their own territory, even if that were an unambiguous policy goal.
Likewise, the failure to deliver a clear message to Chile was not
the cause of the unprecedented act of terrorism on U.S. soil. But
it was certainly the responsibility of U.S. officials to try to stop
or limit the ongoing slaughter when the opportunity presented itself.

In this chapter our investigation will reveal cases in which quite
the opposite happened. In the first case, Secretary of State Kissinger
directly undercut the human rights efforts of his ambassador to Argentina.

Ambassador Robert Hill an unlikely human rights hero. He married into
the enormously wealthy W.R. Grace family, whose vast investments and
unabashed manipulations of political power in Latin America had made
it the stereotype--for Latin Americans--of Yankee imperialism. He
was a Republican Party activist who had served in Congress and in
several political appointments in the State and Defense Departments
under Presidents Nixon and Ford. As ambassador to Spain, he was known
as an inveterate defender of Generalisimo Franco.

As Argentina sank deeper into violence in 1976, however, Ambassador
Hill responded not with anticommunist ideology and pro-business instincts
but with simple moral outrage at the mounting evidence of mass murder
surrounding him. When the military coup took place in March, Hill had
been in conversations with prospective coup leaders, and had been encouraged
by assurances that the new government would avoid the atrocities of
the Pinochet takeover in Chile. Indeed, for the first weeks, that seemed
to be the case, and the scattered killings that occurred were able to
be explained as the work of death squads outside the control of the
military junta. In line with official U.S. policy, Hill endorsed the
military's goals to bring order and defeat leftist terrorism.

As described in Chapter 9, neither human rights observers nor U.S.
intelligence were aware that the military had already begun a program
of secret exterminations of hundreds of suspected enemies in the months
before the coup. It would be months before the extent of the mass killing
would be discovered. The events that destroyed the illusion of a "moderate"
military junta were the killings of foreign leaders in Argentina--crimes
now known to be linked to Operation Condor--the murders of Uruguayan
leaders Zelmar Michelini and Hector Gutiérrez, followed quickly
by the assassination of former president Juan José Torres of
Bolivia.

Hill cabled the State Department in late May that "the time has
come for a demarche at the highest level" to call attention to
the worsening human rights situation. He received authorization for
an urgent meeting with the new foreign minister, Admiral Cesar Guzzetti,
and gave him a strong message of U.S. concern. Those who killed Michelini
and Gutiérrez and others, Hill said, "seem to operate with
impunity are generally believed to be connected with the Argentine security
forces. Whether they are or not, their continued operation can only
be harmful to the GOA [government of Argentina] itself and cause consternation
among Argentina's friends abroad." (1)

The killings only escalated, despite Hill's imprecations. At a subsequent
meeting with Guzzetti, Hill got an inkling that his tough message on
human rights may have been undermined by a different message from Washington,
even before he delivered it. At his September 17 meeting, Hill brought
up the murders several weeks earlier of several priests and the discovery
of a pile of bodies of suspected guerrillas at the locality of Pilar
north of Buenos Aires. Yet Foreign Minister Guzzetti seemed to dismiss
Hill's concerns, according to Hill's cable to Washington. (2)

"THE FOREIGN MINISTER SAID GOA HAD BEEN SOMEWHAT SURPRISED BY
INDICATIONS OF SUCH STRONG CONCERN ON THE PART OF THE USG IN HUMAN RIGHTS
SITUATION IN ARGENTINA. WHEN HE HAD SEEN SECY OF STATE KISSINGER IN
SANTIAGO*, THE LATTER HAD SAID HE 'HOPED THE ARGENTINE GOVT COULD GET
THE TERRORIST PROBLEM UNDER CONTROL AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE.' GUZZETTI
SAID THAT HE HAD REPORTED THIS TO PRESIDENT VIDELA AND TO THE CABINET,
AND THAT THEIR IMPRESSION HAD BEEN THAT USG'S OVERRIDING CONCERN WAS
NOT HUMAN RIGHTS BUT RATHER THAT GOA 'GET IT OVER QUICKLY.'”

Hill said he tried to explain that secretary Kissinger surely was not
implying insensitivity toward human rights and that "murdering
priests and dumping 47 bodies in the street in one day could not be
seen in context of defeating terrorists quickly. …What USG hoped
was that GOA could soon defeat terrorists, yes. But do so as nearly
as possible within the law. I said if any other meaning had been placed
on the secretary's remarks, I was sure it was a misinterpretation."

Hill was hopeful he had corrected misconceptions he believed Guzzetti
had taken away from his Santiago conversation with Kissinger. There
would be another opportunity soon to drive home the message on human
rights. Guzzetti said he was traveling to Washington in October, and
Hill helped set up a series of high-level meetings, including separate
meetings with Kissinger and vice president Nelson Rockefeller. Human
rights would be high on the list of talking points.

But when Guzzetti returned from Washington, Hill learned that no such
thing had happened. Far from appearing chastened, Admiral Guzzetti was
"euphoric" and greeted Hill with an effusive and uncharacteristic
hug when they met. The meetings had been a grand success, and Guzzetti
had already delivered an enthusiastic report to President Videla. He
had encountered barely a word of criticism about human rights but rather
"consensus … to get the terrorist problem over as soon as
possible."

From Rockefeller, he said he heard, "finish the terrorist problem
quickly… the US wanted a strong Argentina and wanted to cooperate
with the GOA."

From Kissinger: "The secretary, he said, had reiterated the advice
given to him at the Santiago meeting, had urged Argentina 'to be careful'
and had said that if the terrorist problem was over by December or January,
he (the secretary) believed serious problems could be avoided in the
US."

His open-arms reception in Washington "had gone far beyond his
expectations." Guzzetti "expressed appreciation that high
officials in our government 'understand the Argentine problem and stand
with us during this difficult period.'"

Ambassador Hill reported the conversations to Washington on October
19 in a long cable in which he barely controlled his fury.

"GUZZETTI WENT TO THE U.S. FULLY EXPECTING TO HEAR SOME STRONG,
FIRM, DIRECT WARNINGS ON HIS GOVT'S HUMAN RIGHTS PRACTICES. RATHER THAN
THAT, HE HAS RETURNED IN A STATE OF JUBILATION, CONVINCED THAT THERE
IS NO REAL PROBLEM WITH THE U.S. OVER THIS ISSUE. BASED ON WHAT GUZZETTI
IS DOUBTLESS REPORTING TO THE GOA, IT MUST NOW BELIEVE THAT IF IT HAS
ANY PROBLEMS WITH THE U.S. OVER HUMAN RIGHTS, THEY ARE CONFINED TO CERTAIN
ELEMENTS OF CONGRESS AND WHAT IT REGARDS AS SLANTED AND/OR UNINFORMED
MINOR SEGMENTS OF PUBLIC OPINION. WHILE THIS CONVICTION EXISTS, IT WILL
BE UNREALISTIC AND INEFFECTUAL FOR THIS EMBASSY TO PRESS REPRESENTATIONS
TO THE GOA OVER HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS. HILL." (3)

Hill's angry cable was a rare example of an ambassador daring to criticize
Secretary of State Kissinger in an official communication, and his effrontery
was not missed in Washington. Assistant Secretary Shlaudeman put the
matter on Kissinger's desk within hours. "Bob Hill has registered
for the record his concern for human rights in a bitter complaint about
our purported failure to impress on Foreign Minister Guzzetti how seriously
we view the rightist violence in Argentina," he wrote to Kissinger.
"I propose to respond for the record."

Kissinger approved Shlaudeman's response to Hill, which began:

"AS IN OTHER CIRCUMSTANCES YOU HAVE UNDOUBTEDLY ENCOUNTERED IN
YOUR DIPLOMATIC CAREER, GUZZETTI HEARD ONLY WHAT HE WANTED TO HEAR.
HE WAS TOLD IN DETAIL HOW STRONGLY OPINION IN THIS COUNTRY HAS REACTED
AGAINST REPORTS OF ABUSES BY THE SECURITY FORCES…GUZZETTI'S INTERPRETATION
IS STRICTLY HIS OWN." (4)

Shlaudeman's clarifications, however, referred explicitly only to
his own meeting with Guzzetti. His cable did not challenge Guzzetti’s
version of remarks attributed to Kissinger and Rockefeller. He seemed
to throw up his hands. *

"IN ANY EVENT, YOU AND WE HAVE LAID IT OUT AS BEST WE COULD.
IN THE CIRCUMSTANCES, I AGREE THAT THE ARGENTINES WILL HAVE TO MAKE
THEIR OWN DECISIONS AND THAT FURTHER EXHORTATIONS OR GENERALIZED LECTURES
FROM US WOULD NOT BE USEFUL AT THIS POINT."

The futility of the ambassador's lectures could not have been clearer
as the toll of atrocities by the Argentine military mounted in the waning
months of 1976. Kissinger's State Department was sending both a red
light and a green light, and the green light was coming from a higher
authority--Kissinger himself. Hill described a "discouraging"
meeting with President Videla several weeks before in which the Argentine
president put the embassy officials in their subordinate place. Videla
repeated Guzzetti's version of his friendly visit with Kissinger and
contrasted it to the ambassador's pressing attitude on human rights.
Videla then said, according to Hill, "He had the impression senior
officers of USG understood [the] situation his government faces but
junior bureaucrats do not."

If there were lingering doubts about Kissinger's real sentiments about
Argentina’s war on terrorism, they were dispelled after the secretary
of state left office and was welcomed by the junta in a private visit
in 1978. According to a cable by the new ambassador, Raul Castro, Kissinger
met alone with Videla to offer suggestions about how to improve relations
with the U.S. government, under President Jimmy Carter, who had placed
unprecedented emphasis on human rights. In open meetings with prominent
Argentines, Kissinger lavishly praised the Videla government. "He
explained his opinion [that] GOA [Government of Argentina] had done
an outstanding job in wiping out terrorist forces. But also cautioned
that methods used in fighting terrorism must not be perpetuated."

Indeed, Argentina's military leaders had followed Kissinger's recipe
for quick, intensive victory in the war on terrorism. The government
had moved with all speed. Roberto Santucho and the top ERP leadership
were killed in a raid in July. By the end of 1976, the ERP had been
eliminated as a guerrilla force, and Montoneros were fleeing the country.
More than 4,000 people had disappeared into the military network of
secret torture camps. Another 1000 people were killed in military actions
in which bodies were left behind and could be identified. Not surprisingly,
the Argentine military had ignored Kissinger’s advice to change
their “methods” once the war was won. The secret killing
continued throughout 1977 and 1978, resulting in 3937 additional disappearances,
according to the conservative count of the Sabato commission.

A State Department intelligence report six months after the coup gave
this detailed assessment of the war on terrorism that was to merit such
high praise from Kissinger: "The most spectacular aspect of the
counter-terrorist drive has been the murderous exploits of extralegal,
right-wing goon squads. (5) Operating with impunity and usually posing
as security officials, the right-wingers are responsible for abducting
and/or murdering hundreds of "leftist security risks," including
political exiles from neighboring countries, foreign nationals, politicians,
students, journalists, and priest. A few actual terrorists probably
have fallen prey to rightist vengeance, but the great majority of the
victims have not been guerrillas." (6)
(end excerpt)

2 Guzzetti dismisses concerns: Buenos Aires 6130, September
20, 1976, "Other aspects of September 17 Conversation with Foreign
Minister. (Argentina Project). Kissinger's conversation with Guzzetti
in Santiago was first reported by Martin Edwin Andersen, "Kissinger
and the Dirty War," The Nation, October 31, 1987. Andersen's article
was based on a memo by Assistant Secretary for Human Rights Patricia
Derian, who was told the story by Hill during a visit to Argentina in
March 1977. In response to Andersen's article, William Rogers, a close
associate of Kissinger's who served as Assistant Secretary for Latin
America before Shlaudeman, cast doubt on the story by claiming--inaccurately--
that Hill had never reported his concern about the Guzzetti-Kissinger
conversation to the State Department. In a letter prepared for Kissinger
and sent to The Nation, Rogers writes: "Hill never told us during
the last six months of 1976, while he was working the human rights issue
so energetically, that you had misled Guzzetti, or that the junta was
under a dangerously misguided impression about your attitude."
* Kissinger met with Foreign Minister Guzzetti during the OAS meeting
in Santiago, the same occasion of Kissinger’s meeting with Pinochet
described in Chapter 10.

4 Shlaudeman response: State 262786, October 22, 1976,
"Guzzetti's Visit to the U.S." (Argentina Project). There
is a further wrinkle to this exchange. I found another version of the
same cable, with a different concluding paragraph. The alternate version,
released to an Argentine court in response to a request under the Mutual
Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), instructs Hill to persevere in his representations.
"We will continue to impress on Argentina representatives here,
as we expect you to do there, that the USG regards most seriously Argentina's
international commitments to protect and promote fundamental human rights."
About Kissinger's views, this version says that Hill should tell Guzzetti
to read a recent speech on human rights given by Kissinger to the Synagogue
Council of America. No explanation for the radically differing versions
could be learned.
* Shlaudeman, referred to the episode in an oral history interview in
1993, when asked about the controversy over human rights policy: "It
really came to a head when I was Assistant Secretary, or it began to
come to a head, in the case of Argentina where the dirty war was in
full flower. Bob Hill, who was Ambassador then in Buenos Aires, a very
conservative Republican politician -- by no means liberal or anything
of the kind, began to report quite effectively about what was going
on, this slaughter of innocent civilians, supposedly innocent civilians
-- this vicious war that they were conducting, underground war. He,
at one time in fact, sent me a back-channel telegram saying that the
Foreign Minister, who had just come for a visit to Washington and had
returned to Buenos Aires, had gloated to him that Kissinger had said
nothing to him about Human Rights. I don't know -- I wasn't present
at the interview." Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training
Foreign Affairs Oral History Project, interviewed by William E. Knight,
May 24, 1993.

5 Actually, it was the military, not right wingers---quote
Chaplain cable.